Azkaban
by thatcutellamachan
Summary: Drabble.  One Shot.  Draco is in Azkaban, losing himself.  Hints of Drarry.


_Azkaban_

Draco Malfoy, I, am losing my grip on reality. It's in my family, my genes, to be slightly insane, off my rocker, mad as hell, bloodlust, just like Aunt Bella. Azkaban is killing me. Or not killing me, making me mad Just once I wish the Dementors won't linger past my dank, dark, metal, cell door, won't suck away all the happy memories, the few of them, I have. Memories don't go away but it hurts not to have them for moments and then to feel them grow fuzzier and less clear and slowly turning to mud until I _can't_ remember what made my eight birthday so special or what the name of the cat I'd had when I was four was without remembering my father killing it when I was nine.

Insane, off his rocker, mad as hell. Bloodlust?

Bloodlust for the pain-making, unfeeling, angry guards. The guards could do whatever they wanted to the prisoners in Azkaban short of rape and murder, that was their job, to make those in Azkaban miserable because they had to be there too, making sure the Dementors didn't step out of line, making sure none of the prisoners was an unregistered Animagus. No more Sirius Black, no,no,no,no,no they couldn't have one of those. No. No more escapeers. Capers. Stealers. Getting out, getting free, becoming sane again.

_ Blackie._ The cats name was Blackie. Father killed the cat, my cat. I did something bad... the bad thing I always got in trouble for, Father always used to hit me for it but he killed my cat because he knew I loved Blackie, he didn't want me doing it again.

What was it I used to do? I can't remember.

I never remember.

Days all mold into one single hour here in Azkaban, I sleep when I'm tired and I'm always tired. They take all of us prisoner's down, once a week, to a big room where we're all chained together and they announce jobs we can do, jobs that'll fix up the world after the war, jobs that can get us a moment outside. Time off of our sentence.

You can't take time off of forever, you just end up with forever.

And Death Eaters can't take the jobs anyway, so I barely ever ask to go down. It tires me out, I get so tired walking there. I don't get a lot of food.

The guard assigned to the hallway I'm in, the hallway with the windows that face the stormy seas outside and we get wet all of the time and there's puddles on the ground and every storm it feels like Armaggeddon so we crawl onto our beds which are lifted off the floor and try to stay dry, that guard had a daughter in Hogwarts. He knows I'm the one who let the Death Eaters in, who let Snape kill Dumbledore, his daughter died during the Battle of Hogwarts, she was fourteen. He hates me. I can tell. Thats why he doesn't give me my food most of the time.

Fish. Fish get their cages poked. Fish hate it. Fish are all prisoners. I'm a fish because I'm wet so often. But then I'm hot, so hot and sick and I lie down and shiver even though I'm hot and cling to my tattered blanket and lie on the bed with no mattress only boards and I mumble things and I know I'm going insane because sick makes me insane and I can hear the steady beat of the rain outside and I just want it to stop, stop, stop, stop drop drip.

Harry dresses up like a guard sometimes and asks me how I'm doing. He slips an apple, with no parts rotten, or a fresh, hot piece of white bread into my cage. He asks me how I'm doing. Sometimes he reaches through the bars and holds my hand and tells me to hang on hang on. I tell Harry I'm doing fine. Harry likes to hear I'm doing fine. I've forgotten what 'fine' means and he knows it. He knows I'm slipping away. He knows I'm losing. Harry kisses me and begs me to hang on to my sanity.

There's nothing to hold on to. Sanity is intangible.

I tell Harry to leave and he never does.

Guards can do anything to prisoners short of rape and murder.

When Harry sees me with fresh bruises on my face he yells and screams and asks me who did this to me. I never answer Harry, I don't know the guards by name. My vision blurrs too.

All hour long, the days and the nights are hours here nothing changes, all hour long I sit in the cold and the wet and the dark. The sky is always dark, magiced never to let in sunlight, only storms. Storms storms and more storms to make me sick and shiver with fever. When guards take me to laugh at me and spit on me they take me to a room, lit up with all the glaring brightness of the sun and even when I close my eyes it is still far, far too bright.

Harry watches all of this and he grows paler, starts looking sicker, starts wasting away. Just like me.

One of us has to stay sane, I tell Harry, I'm the one in the cell so it better be you.

It's not good for Harry to stay here and kiss me and tell me that its going to be alright and be concerned for me. Its not good for Harry to pass by Dementors and have the bad memories surface again, all the bad memories poor Harry has. Harry should be outside and save the world against Voldemort. Wait. He already did. Voldemort is dead, right? How old am I?

I don't remember the last thing that happened to me. I'm certain it had something to do with Harry, holding me, telling me to go to Azkaban because he'd sort everything out and I wouldn't be there less than a week. It has to have been longer than a week. Such a long, long hour.

One day Harry isn't there, but that isn't so unusual. He isn't there the next either, and that is unusual. He doesn't come for the day later, and now I can't remember if Harry has ever come at all. Perhaps a week passes, I count the days like the other prisoners do, by the arrival of food, but my guard hates me and he skips meals. Meals meant for me. Meals supposed to give me strength. I don't have strength and the puddles on the floor and the cold in the air and the thin ragged blanket make me sicker and sicker until I can't get out of bed and no one cares because Harry isn't there.

The day before Harry comes back I fall asleep in my cell and I never wake up.


End file.
